Orbital Frontal Cortex Projections to Secondary Motor Cortex Mediate Exploitation of Learned Rules.

ABSTRACT: Animals face the dilemma between exploiting known opportunities and exploring new ones, a decision-making process supported by cortical circuits. While different types of learning may bias exploration, the circumstances and the degree to which bias occurs is unclear. We used an instrumental lever press task in mice to examine whether learned rules generalize to exploratory situations and the cortical circuits involved. We first trained mice to press one lever for food and subsequently assessed how that learning influenced pressing of a second novel lever. Using outcome devaluation procedures we found that novel lever exploration was not dependent on the food value associated with the trained lever. Further, changes in the temporal uncertainty of when a lever press would produce food did no

SUBMITTER: Schreiner DC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6054681 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature